Thinking Outside the Bathroom Storage Box

I've been giving a lot of thought to bathroom storage. In my bathroom in LA, I had the luxury of a medicine chest and a closet just outside the bathroom. But where I'm staying now, my only options are a window ledge and a rack positioned way too high for everyday use. There's barely even any extra floor space. For right now, everything's jumbled into a box under the pedestal sink…

If you're facing a similar storage dilemma in your bathroom, here are some options I've rounded up!

• The wall-mounted candle holders from CB2 are used in this home's playroom to hold pencils. They'd be even more useful in the bathroom to hold makeup brushes, toothbrushes, tubes of toothpaste and medicine. • Ikea's Grundtal series are a favorite. Personally I prefer the items designed for the kitchen rethought for bathroom use: the cutlery stand to hold narrow items; the spice rack doing duty as an open medicine chest. Corral small items in glasses or small jars; we also like this idea for using bamboo steamers for storage. If finding space for these things are a problem, take a cue from this post: the back of the bathroom door can hold more than just towels!• Wall mounted baskets, suggested in this post, are a good option for larger items like towels, washcloths or larger bottles of products.• If you don't mind your stuff being "on display," hanging baskets, used in some kitchens to hold onions or fruit, can clip over your shower curtain rod. Just make sure, if there's a chance they'll get wet, that the items are capped tightly or waterproof. • Wall mounted hooks can hold more than just towels and robes. If your bathroom's particularly narrow, take a cue from The Mondrian Hotel and hang some hooks (maybe these or these) along the walls. If you have a lot of stuff in tubes (it also works for flat items like combs and toothbrushes), use a large binder clamp, clipped to one end, and then dropped over an S hook, to make them hangable. Hang shampoos, conditioners and body lotions near your shower (you can hook them over the shower rod) and toothpaste and toothbrushes near your sink (slip an s hook into one of those wall-mounted toothbrush and cup holders found in many older bathrooms).